I understand why you say this but it is short-sighted. Folks in a business like Amway are endeavoring to earn their time back. For me (and you I daresay) time is a more valuable commodity than soap. If paying for somewhat over-priced soap is part-and-parcel of throwing off a stultifying career it is a small price to pay. I "knew" some guys who made more before noon than most people make in a year... What "price" would you pay if you could reverse your week by working 16 hours per week and having 40 off and getting paid better than your former full-time work? The job gets paid however much society values what you do. You get paid the least amount your employer can pay you and retain your services. Then there comes a point when you can be replaced by someone half your age and half the money. Of course this is a generalization which means it is not always true but is true most of the time. There are exceptional places to work but they are not the norm. Most people complain about their careers and won't do a damn thing to change it and undermine the efforts of people who are at least stepping out to try. Amway is a little heavy on the brainwashing, but it is no cult. Fifteen years ago I walked away and that was it. No one chased me down or scandalized my name. That was done moreso by people outside of that business while I was "involved" and it was just based on their prejudice-- some of which was valid, of course. Several of my best friends today were people I met during that time. None of us are involved with that company any more but we appreciate the great education we got from the experience. Of course there are things that were "regrettable" but that happens at every venue.
giddyup - undercover spokesman for amway/quixtar. if you're not affiliated with them, why are you trying so hard to defend them?
1. Because I believe in fairness. Most of the problems that people have with the Amway/Quixtar business are ones that they have with some person not the entire business. The company has tried for years to remedy some of the problems but the horse was already out of the barn. That being said, it would take a huge incentive to get me back in that particular business. There are better ones in my opinion. 2. I'm still in the "industry" and most of these very generalized and even exaggerated complaints are leveled at the whole industry-- which I seek to protect. There are problems everywhere. There are great companies and opportunities out there and I'm an advocate of finding one that matches you if you have a restlessness about you.
giddyup, the problems I have is not with anyone but the company/system on the whole. Some of their methods of doing things are highly unethical and depends on with holding information. You yourself admitted that they use brainwashing tactics. That alone should be enough to make you run the other way. If the system is so good then why depend so heavily on shady methods. They recruit by depending on referrals so people would let their guard down. They give a false impression of how much time is really necessary for the business to survive . They claim you can make money in your spare time. Yet after you commit, you realize that it is a lot more time intensive than they lead on to believe initially. It's like substituting one job for another. And if the products are so good and price competitive, then why do you have to depend so much on recruitment? It's pretty much a given that's it's not possible to make any kind of substantial money simply by using the products yourself and selling them. You have to get people under you to make up your PV total each month. And it's at the expense of your downline because they are the ones who buy the products and use them themselves. And why can't they let you try some of the products for free, like samples, before you sign up? Or let you view the site to see the product prices before you make a decision to commit to the program? From what I experienced the goal of the IBO's is to get as much people recruited as possible (all the dude was asking me about was a list of names and numbers of 15-20 people I know). And they do it by revealing as little about the business as possible and at the same time rush you into a decision before you have time to think it through carefully.
The system is created by the distributors not the company. The BTF income stream is made of products that are created and distributed by IBOs not the corporation-- at least that's the way it used to be. Sure the corporation had some tools and a national convention which virtually no one went to, but everyone went to the Regional and Local Events which were run by and profitable to the IBO marketing groups. I use the term brainwashing loosely. There is no coercion or anything like that. It's similar to the brainwashing that everybody gets when they work for a company that wants to develop enthusiasm and loyalty. I hated much of it, but I put up with it to a point to get what I came after. Obviously some people want and need that and some don't. The with-holding is a difficult choice. In my time I had people who were grateful that I hadn't told them too much ahead of time because they never would have gotten the information which was much more palatable than their prejudice would have allowed. It is a great source of tensioin for most people and is one of the reason that the drop-out rate is so high. Other opps don't have to shield themselves from a sordid history-- other than one that is generalized to the whole industry. It's easy. If you were in a land rush, would you stake out a single acre or go for as much as you could manage... and then some if you had time. People and their contacts represent market share. More people have a better chance of moving more products which generates more income. There is also the practical aspect of recruiting through people. Your prospect may burn out in a month but his first month's enthusiasm might lead you to someone who succeeds. Seek and you shall find.... Yep, it is more intensive than people expect. That's a burnout factor. It's also voluntary. You don't have to drink the Kool-Aid! It's not at the expense of your downline. They have exactly the same situation that you do: STARTING AT ZERO EVERY MONTH. Your downline does exactly the same thing you do every month: order what they want or need for personal consumption and promote the opportunity and the products. Actually when I was still ordering products fifteen years ago, Amway didn't even require me to order a single thing to qualify for my residual income. I don't know if that is still the case. Most companies these days require a qualifying personal volume from personal consumption or retail sales (mostly through the internet so you're not schleppiing products around town.) There was a legendary story of a guy out of Buffalo, NY. He did the "dis-service" of ever sponsoring one guy into the Amway business. He didn't lift a finger to help the guy; he just got him in. Well, the man in question went through a hundred NO's before he found his first "partner." He was a consequential guy, too-- a City Manager. Two decades later he has hundreds of thousands of IBOs from around the world and he makes Shaq-like money even if he never works his business another day in his life. Strictly speaking, it's not guaranteed because every single one of his hundreds of thousands of wholesale customers could not order next month and he wouldn't make a penny.... theoretically... you get my drift. Out of curiosity, I went to one of the regional Amway events a couple of months ago with a friend from those days. We were just curious about who was still involved from our days. The company is re-asserting it's retail selling platform and I think has a more aggressive sampling inventory-- at least that's what I remember them saying. Actually they have pretty good products in my opinion. See my remarks above: they know as well as anyone that there is this huge prejudice (not totally undeserved) about the Amway name. That's part of why they went to the Quixtar alternative (fresh start plus the advent of the Internet). It's really no different than any sales job. They all under-estimate how hard the work will be and how hard the money will be to make whether it is insurance or mutual funds or boilers. It's just a numbers game but it is portrayed like everyone want "in." When I met the woman who became my wife twelve years ago in October, she had to run home and commiserate with her mother when she found out that I had been in Amway a couple of years prior-- so strong was her prejudice. To me that is laughable, but I've seen enough of it to know that it is out there. I'm only urging a more moderate evaluation of the facts rather than the extremes that people seem to go to because as one who has been on the inside... it's not that different than the outside world. It's reviewed more harshly because people go into it with such high and unreasonable hopes rather than a dogged determination to get results.
When my ex-wife and I were in it, the high and unreasonable hopes came from the people recruiting us. I tempered my own enthusiasm, gave it a try and discovered it wasn't right for me. But had I bought into what my brother-in-law and others were telling me and failed, I would've been pissed at them for painting an overly rosy picture of an unattainable result.
Understood... but we still are responsible for our own due diligence and choices. You should have seen the rosy picture painted by the people that recruited me into the insurance business. Same deal only more professional.
LOL so true, back in college I was recruited by Metlife here is Houston to join them as sales guy. I went to their freakin office across from Memorial City Mall and was given orientation and told to go to some bogus company and get a license and training for $400 but I never followed through. They never asked me during the interview process if I was licensed to sell insurance. Anyway I left the job and never called them back.
One of my best friends from High School tried to get me into quixtar, I have refused to join, probably why I havent been in contact with that guy Another friend tried to get me into Primerica, neither of them are doing that well financially.
You know whats funny? I went to a couple of these seminars in California and it helped me get my business started. If it wasn't for quixstar I wouldn't have "woken up" to take the risk of starting up my own company. I learned from them that school and working for other people is completely useless. What's the point? Why work for someone else? Why go to school? To get a degree and work for someone else? People who sit at a desk get paid more than people who stand and do all the work. I was working at Boeing in Huntington Beach making decent money for a single, young person. I worked there for a year then found out about quixstar, I attended two different seminars and took in their knowledge. Work was totally different after that, I had a different perception. Couple weeks later, I was told my section was going to be laid off. Here I am only one year with the company and getting laid off, what if I was working for them for 20+ years then what?? They offered me to go to another section but I declined and started up my own business. My business is doing pretty good. I'm very happy with my decision. What Quixstar taught me was something no classes in college could ever teach you. I didn't sign up with quixstar as I too researched it and concluded it was a pyramid type scheme, but one would be foolish not to take their concepts and apply it other ways where anyone can become wealthy.
Congratulations to you; I know others who carried away this same kind of lesson and conviction. ... but it's not a Pyramid Scheme!
Quixstar is bogus. They lie and dont give you the whole story. You ask them a question and they tell you some fable. I have been to 2 Quixstar meetings and have come out with nothing. When you ask them details they give a run around and answer with the same programmed answers. Thank God I never joined but I wish I could get the time spent with those weasels back.
I got recruited for Amway back in college. They're basically recruiting you to buy from them and get other people to buy from them. Almost as if you're selling CostCo memberships and you get a bit of what people buy at CostCo. And of course they expect you to buy from CostCo. Not a bad business idea in that sense I guess. What was scary to me (and what others have mentioned) is the cultish atmosphere of it all. They pretty much want you to disown all your friends who are not in Amway. (Why hang out with people who will just pull you down? Why hang out with unsuccessful people if you want to be successful?) I even went to a big convention down at the George R. Brown where one of their super diamonds (a diamond is someone who has 6 other 'legs' underneath them doing a certain amount of revenue) was speaking. The guy stood on stage and started spouting off religious stuff. And when he said that the lunar landing was a conspiracy and never happened (and his 'proof' was that moon dust should have been 4ft deep instead of thin layer we saw) I stood up and left and never went to another meeting.
